Tappan Zee report suggests some rail system revamps

At Rockland County's insistence, the final report from the Tappan Zee Bridge Mass Transit Task Force includes recommendations for improving rail service on the Pascack Valley and Port Jervis lines.

Judy Rife

At Rockland County's insistence, the final report from the Tappan Zee Bridge Mass Transit Task Force includes recommendations for improving rail service on the Pascack Valley and Port Jervis lines.

Some of the recommendations, such as promoting Amtrak's Gateway project, would benefit Orange County. Others, such as adding stops to Port Jervis line schedules, would not.

These "midterm" recommendations are pegged as potential improvements up to 15 years after the new TZB opens in 2018, but the report suggests "starting the conversation among key agencies" in the short-term — a victory of sorts for Harriet Cornell, the long-time chairwoman of the Rockland County Legislature.

But Cornell ignored the rolling eyes and prodded the task force time and again to think in terms of improving all of Rockland's transit options, not just those over the new bridge and through Westchester. In the process, Cornell, along with Planning Commissioner Thomas Vanderbeek and then-County Executive Scott Vanderhoef, coincidentally advanced some of Orange County's interests, too.

Now, freed from a nine-year stint as leader of the county Legislature (albeit not voluntarily), Cornell intends to use her post as chairwoman of a new transit committee to pursue those conversations.

"I don't think many other people have the passion for these issues that I do, and it's going to take a real push if these recommendations aren't going to just stay in a report on the table," said Cornell.

"Push," she conceded, is perhaps an understatement, given the past year of upheaval at Metro-North and NJ Transit, which brought new leadership to both agencies in February. Joseph Giulietti, the new Metro-North president, and Veronique Hakim, the new NJ Transit executive director, have their hands full.

However, Thomas Prendergast, the chairman and CEO of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, has embraced Amtrak's Gateway plans — the Bergen loop, the second Hudson River tunnel and the Pennsylvania Station expansion — as "a very important project" for both Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road.

Susan Metzger, Orange County's representative to the MTA, said she and her Rockland counterpart, Carl Wortendyke, have already asked Giulietti about reaching out to Hakim independent of the task force's recommendations. Metro-North contracts with NJ Transit to operate its west-of-Hudson service.

"We want them to ride the train together, with us, on the Port Jervis line and the Pascack Valley line," said Metzger. "We're the smallest component of the MTA, and I think if we stick together, if we form a team and help each other, then we've both got a better shot at getting more service."

Metzger cautioned that "the real problem" with any initiative is going to be funding, since the MTA is still piecing together financing for its 2015-19 capital plan and is awash in cost overruns and delays with East Side Access, the megaproject to bring the LIRR into Grand Central Terminal.

"The economy's still soft, and funding isn't going to get easier for a long time," Metzger said.

The New Jersey Association of Rail Passengers is also using the changing of the guard to advance two proposals, one calling for Amtrak stops at Secaucus and the other for a subway extension to Secaucus. The proposals were presented to the task force after it had formulated its recommendations, but Rockland and Orange counties could benefit from both of them.

"Real people have made real suggestions, and now it's important for us to see that these ideas remain top of mind," Cornell said.